The Madrid-based Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (OCDH), which monitors human rights on the island from exile, presented its ninth study of social rights on 13 August, putting extreme poverty at 94 per cent of the population and disapproval of the government at 95 per cent, three points above the same survey a year earlier1.
Blackouts are the most-named problem at 70 per cent, ahead of the food crisis at 52 per cent and the cost of living at 45 per cent. 68 per cent of households report monthly income under 20,000 pesos, about 30 US dollars at the informal rate that week. Eight in ten respondents had skipped a meal for want of money or food.
One finding bears directly on Havana's reform programme. 84 per cent of respondents distrust the economic measures the government has announced, and 6 per cent expect them to help2. The fieldwork asked about measures announced by 13 August, which puts it within three weeks of Decreto 160 taking force on 4 August, the decree that flipped the default rule on private-sector activity and which the state presented as being for the population's welfare. It closed three weeks before the 4 September foreign investment decree and says nothing about that one.
A government can dispute a survey it dislikes, and Havana has not disputed this margin, nor does it publish a comparable count of its own. That leaves the reform programme with a measured audience that expects nothing from it, on the only numbers anyone has.
